IHES Annual Report 2020 | 51

To the IHES Board of Directors,

OPINION ln compliance with the engagement entrusted to us by your Board of Directors, we have audited the accompanying financial statements of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques Foundation for the year ended 31 December 2020. ln our opinion, the financial statements give a true and fair view of the assets and liabilities and of the financial position of the Foundation, as at 31 December 2020 and of the results of its operations for the year then ended in accordance with French accounting principles.

BASIS FOR OPINION AUDIT FRAMEWORK We conducted our audit in accordance with professional standards applicable in France. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Statutory Auditor's Responsibilities for the Audit of the Financial Statements section of our report. INDEPENDENCE We conducted our audit engagement in compliance with independence requirements of the French Commercial Code (code de commerce) and the French Code of Ethics (code de déontologie) for statutory auditors, for the period from 1 January 2020 to the date of our report. EMPHASIS OF MATTER Without questioning the opinion formulated above, we draw attention to the change in accounting method resulting from the first application of the accounting regulation ANC no. 2018-06 of 5 December 2018 as described in the Accounting Rules and Methods paragraph of the financial statements.

JUSTIFICATION OF ASSESSMENTS Due to the global crisis related to the Covid-19 pandemic, the financial statements of this period have been prepared and audited under specific conditions. Indeed, this crisis and the exceptional measures taken in the context of the state of sanitary emergency have had numerous consequences for companies, particularly on their operations and their financing, and have led to greater uncertainties on their future prospects. Those measures, such as travel restrictions and remote working, have also had an impact on the companies' internal organization and the performance of the audits. It is in this complex and evolving context that, in accordance with the requirements of Articles L. 823-9 and R. 823-7 of the French Commercial Code (code de commerce) relating to the justification of our assessments, we inform you of the following assessments that, in our professional judgment, were of most significance in our audit of the financial statements of the current period, in particular with regard to the application of the new accounting regulation. These matters were addressed in the context of our audit of the financial statements as a whole, approved in the conditions mentioned above, and in forming our opinion thereon, and we do not provide a separate opinion on specific items of the financial statements.

SPECIFIC VERIFICATIONS We have also performed, in accordance with professional standards applicable in France, the specific verifications required by French law. We have no matters to report as to the fair presentation and the consistency with the financial statements of the information given in the management report and in the other documents provided to directors with respect to the financial position and the financial statements.

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FINANCIAL REPORT

Statutory Auditor's Report